Intellectual Freedom Law Is Bobby Jindal's Latest Conservative Success

Bobby Jindal just keeps shakin' things up down on the bayou.

Having already established himself as one of the most visionary, most effective Republican governors in the South (and he's only been in office a few months!), Jindal is proving that conservative policies (when intelligently, unapologetically explained and then vigorously pursued) are a political winner.

John West, writing in NRO, has a fascinating article about one of the latest examples; namely, Jindal signing into law an intellectual freedom act which defends teachers who dare to explore both sides of controversies like global warming and even Darwinian evolution.

Self-Command, the Prudent Use of Freedom...and WALL-E

...Some conservatives have dismissed "WALL-E" as a crude critique of business and capitalism. This is only true if capitalism is identical to boundless consumerism -- a conviction that Adam Smith did not seem to share. Smith argued that human flourishing requires "good temper and moderation." Self-command and the prudent use of freedom are central to his moral theory. And these are precisely the virtues celebrated in "WALL-E." The end credits -- worth staying to see -- are a beautiful tribute to art and work, craft and cultivation.

"WALL-E" is partly an environmental parable, but its primary point is moral. The movie argues that human beings, aided by technology, can become imprisoned by their consumption. The pursuit of the latest style leads to conformity. The pursuit of pleasure displaces the deeper enjoyments of affection and friendship. The pursuit of our rhinestone desires manages to obscure our view of the stars....

Read the rest of Michael Gerson's thoughtful commentary right here.

Is Anyone Surprised? Barack Obama Is the Preferred Candidate of Abortionists

Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council has a few reminders for those Christians who are thinking about votinfgfor Barack Obama, at least for those Christians that the mainstream media keeps telling us are going to vote for Barack Obama --

Planned Parenthood apparently has no doubts about where Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) stands on abortion as their political arm announced their endorsement of Sen. Obama. Planned Parenthood's president Cecile Richards called him a "passionate advocate" with a "long and consistent record of standing up for" legal abortion.

In a speech Sen. Obama made to a Planned Parenthood audience last July he vowed that "the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would effectively overturn hundreds of state laws that have put reasonable restrictions on abortion, including parental notification. FOCA would guarantee direct public funding for abortion.

Last year Planned Parenthood claimed an income of $1 billion, one-third of it from U.S. taxpayers. This for an organization whose president makes some $1 million a year in salary, whose political action arm has vowed to spend $10 million this election cycle, and which is now building high-end mega-abortion centers in many American neighborhoods. One such center just went up in Denver, Colo. and the massive facility will not only perform abortions but also serve as a political headquarters for its electioneering.

Such a taxpayer-subsidized combination of the deadly and political is possibly allowable due to Title X regulations, which regulate taxpayer funds that go to "family planning" organizations. It is well past time to stop the millions in fungible tax dollars going to Planned Parenthood each year.

Today's Posts

WALL-E Revisited

A Gratuitous Flip-Flop: CBS News Reports on Grave Dangers of Gardasil

When Animal Rights Activists Devolve Into Mere Man-Hating Hoodlums

Barack Obama Has an Answer to America's Language Problem: Learn Spanish

Call In the Shrinks. Our Politicians Are Suffering "Climate Change Delusions."

WALL-E Revisited

In responding to a friend's e-mail yesterday, I ended up making several more specific comments about the G-rated Pixar film WALL-E than what I had made in an earlier blog post about the movie. Claire read the note and suggested I print them here too. Okay, babe.

But please be forewarned if you haven't already seen the film. There are "spoilers" below!

...We especially liked WALL-E because it was such a surprise. Claire and I rarely go to the movies (we prefer old stuff: Astaire and Rogers, Frank Capra, Bogart, Ronald Colman, Citizen Kane, Marx Brothers, Britain's Ealing Studios, et al) but The Point's links to World and CT about the film were enough for us to check it out.

We found the messages in WALL-E vivid and compelling; especially the critical need for emotion and companionship, the enduring power of hope, and the dangers of monopoly (I think that was much clearer than mere anti-capitalism) as well as the dangers of overindulgence and living life as a consumer/spectator rather than an active adventurer.

Regarding that latter area, what you found depressing was one of the things we found most delightful; that is, the realization of the captain (and at least a few of the other "roly-poly people") that they needed to drastically change. Could they pull it off? You're right; maybe they couldn't. But the effort, requiring as it did a foundation of humility (repentance may be too strong), courage, resolve and hard work? Well, the fact that they were willing to start in was terrific. Thus the film ends with a huge challenge facing the principals, but it ends in hope.

One other connected point -- a major part of that hope is provided by the backwards scan provided by the "camera" at the end of the film, revealing that there's a lot more plants that have made it beside the one they've so honorably saved. It provides a most interesting departure from standard "green" doctrines. Man, even if he does his dead level best to kill a planet, just can't pull it off. Earth is damaged but Earth wins after all. It's an attitude that certainly doesn't lend itself to the global warming mania.

We also liked the grown up subtleties of WALL-E (the old film clips of Hello Dolly, the odd bits WALL-E collected, the jabs at giants like WalMart, the use of the theme from 2001 as background for the captain taking on the computer, and so on) and we loved the touching, powerful romance involved in just holding hands. We've traveled a long road down since the Beatles sang of the same sensation, haven't we?

Plus Claire absolutely loved the sound the little robot made. She's been mimicking it for two days now (Waaallleeee, Eeeevaaaa)...

A Gratuitous Flip-Flop: CBS News Reports on Grave Dangers of Gardasil

"Better late than never."

That's Jill Stanek's conclusion after watching this segment of the CBS Evening News in which former cheerleader Katie Couric does a slick 180 turn on Gardasil, the vaccine for the sexually transmitted disease, human papillomavirus (HPV). Indeed, the story reveals documentation of 8,864 "adverse events" related to the drug already, including "massive wart outbreaks," seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation...and 18 deaths.

If you recall, it wasn't that long ago that the journalistic powers that be were insisting that Gardasil be required for all 5th and 6th grade girls in the country.

Pro-life, pro-family activists fought the Gardasil campaign as being an unwarranted intrusion into family life, a counter-productive action regarding a young girl's self-esteem and healthy sexual development, and, quite possibly, given the shameful lack of scientific testing of the drug, a serious danger to her physical health.

That didn't stop the MSM chorus FOR coercive doses of Gardasil and, therefore, AGAINST the fuddy-duddys like Jill and others (including Vital Signs Ministries) who fought back against the drug.

Stanek describes the next stage: "After Texas Gov. Rick Perry went so far as to sign an executive order forcing the vaccine, it came to light that Merck had financial ties to the poke pushers. Perry's exec order was overturned, Merck called off its legislative whores, and pro-family proponents won the day, even while liberals and MSM grumbled at our ignorance."

But now Katie has started asking questions, perhaps signaling a general shift in the MSM being more skeptical of Gardasil. But, if you're waiting for the press to apologize or to thank the pro-lifers for being the voice of reason in the fray, don't. Indeed, even this CBS News report didn't go nearly as far as it should have in denouncing Merck and its dangerous drug.

And remember too, the news story wasn't generated by CBS staffers doing up follow-up investigations. MSM giants don't worry about cleaning up the messes they themselves have made. The story was generated by the efforts of Judicial Watch. Good for them. (By the way, you can see their own report on the Judicial Watch web page.)

Just be glad the information is finally breaking out to larger audiences, thus saving many other girls from the ravages of a dangerous drug. And who knows -- maybe a few more parents will stop depending on pharmaceuticals to keep their daughters safe from STDs and instead instruct them in chaste, responsible lifestyles.

Jill's right (as she always is) -- "Better late than never."

When Animal Rights Activists Devolve Into Mere Man-Hating Hoodlums

While Jerry Vlasak, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front, says he isn't actually encouraging anyone to murder scientists who use animals in research, he does say contend that "if you had to hurt somebody or intimidate them or kill them, it would be morally justifiable."

Does it seem inconsistent that these folks do not oppose lethal experimentation on human embryos and that they're not in the least way bothered by the savagery that destroys human lives through surgical or chemical abortion?

Not really. For the radicals in the animal rights movement are not really activists for peace, justice or mercy. They are agents for a demonic philosophy which reduces Man to the level of beast...or, more usually, even lower.

The Washington Times has a frightening story here about these desperate and irrational goons and how they are taking their campaign against scientific researchers to despicable new levels.

Barack Obama Has an Answer to America's Language Problem: Learn Spanish

Barack Obama addressed the issue of official languages yesterday by endorsing one: Spanish. Instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, he told an audience, America should be teaching its children Spanish...

Also, Obama’s argument here makes no sense. He’s complaining that Americans don’t speak the native language when we visit Europe, but that we don’t speak the immigrant language when people move to the United States. With that argument, shouldn’t we expect Europeans to speak English when we travel there?

I agree that everyone should learn a foreign language... However, to argue that Americans should learn Spanish as a higher priority than insisting that immigrants learn English is nonsense, and Obama’s argument for it is a giant non-sequitur. It carries a strong whiff of America-bashing, too...

If I emigrated to a country where English was not the language, I would not demand that the government produce signs and panphlets in English; I’d learn the language. My children would learn it as well if I expected them to succeed in their new land.

(Source: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air)

Call In the Shrinks. Our Politicians Are Suffering "Climate Change Delusions."

Andrew Bolt notes the first documented case of "climate change delusion" (I'm not kidding here; the matter is described in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry) but suggests the much more serious threat to health and economic well being is posed by the global warming maniacs posing as statesmen. Here in this very well-argued article in the Herald Sun, Bolt aggressively takes on the plans of foolish politicians who have fallen for the Al Gore/Chicken Little fables. Great stuff here...but very scary.

...But never mind the poor boy, who became too terrified even to drink. What's scarier is that people in charge of our Government seem to suffer from this "climate change delusion", too.

Here is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday, with his own apocalyptic vision: "If we do not begin reducing the nation's levels of carbon pollution, Australia's economy will face more frequent and severe droughts, less water, reduced food production and devastation of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu wetlands."

And here is a senior Sydney Morning Herald journalist aghast at the horrors described in the report on global warming released on Friday by Rudd's guru, Professor Ross Garnaut: "Australians must pay more for petrol, food and energy or ultimately face a rising death toll . . ."

Wow. Pay more for food or die. Is that Rudd's next campaign slogan? Of course, we can laugh at this -- and must -- but the price for such folly may soon be your job, or at least your cash.

Rudd and Garnaut want to scare you into backing their plan to force people who produce everything from petrol to coal-fired electricity, from steel to soft drinks, to pay for licences to emit carbon dioxide -- the gas they think is heating the world to hell. The cost of those licences, totalling in the billions, will then be passed on to you through higher bills for petrol, power, food, housing, air travel and anything else that uses lots of gassy power. In some countries they're even planning to tax [flatulent] cows, so there's no end to the ways you can be stung.

Rudd hopes this pain will make you switch to expensive but less gassy alternatives, and -- hey presto -- the world's temperature will then fall, just like it's actually done since the day Al Gore released An Inconvenient Truth.

But you'll have spotted already the big flaw in Rudd's mad plan -- one that confirms he and Garnaut really do have delusions. The truth is Australia on its own emits less than 1.5 per cent of the world's carbon dioxide. Any savings we make will make no real difference, given that China (now the biggest emitter) and India (the fourth) are booming so fast that they alone will pump out 42 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases by 2030. Indeed, so fast are the world's emissions growing -- by 3.1 per cent a year thanks mostly to these two giants -- that the 20 per cent cuts Rudd demands of Australians by 2020 would be swallowed up in just 28 days.

That's how little our multi-billions of dollars in sacrifices will matter. And that's why Rudd's claim that we'll be ruined if we don't cut Australia's gases is a lie. To be blunt...

Last month, India likewise issued its National Action Plan on Climate Change, and also rejected Rudd-style cuts. The plan's authors, the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change, said India would rather save its people from poverty than global warming, and would not cut growth to cut gases. "It is obvious that India needs to substantially increase its per capita energy consumption to provide a minimally acceptable level of wellbeing to its people."

The plan's only real promise was in fact a threat: "India is determined that its per capita greenhouse gas emissions will at no point exceed that of developed countries." Gee, thanks. That, of course, means India won't stop its per capita emissions (now at 1.02 tonnes) from growing until they match those of countries such as the US (now 20 tonnes). Given it has one billion people, that's a promise to gas the world like it's never been gassed before.

So is this our death warrant? Should this news have you seeing apocalyptic visions, too?

Well, no.

What makes the Indian report so interesting is that unlike our Ross Garnaut, who just accepted the word of those scientists wailing we faced doom, the Indian experts went to the trouble to check what the climate was actually doing and why. Their conclusion? They couldn't actually find anything bad in India that was caused by man-made warming: "No firm link between the documented (climate) changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established."

In fact, they couldn't find much change in the climate at all. Yes, India's surface temperature over a century had inched up by 0.4 degrees, but there had been no change in trends for large-scale droughts and floods, or rain: "The observed monsoon rainfall at the all-India level does not show any significant trend . . ."

It even dismissed the panic Al Gore helped to whip up about melting Himalayan glaciers: "While recession of some glaciers has occurred in some Himalayan regions in recent years, the trend is not consistent across the entire mountain chain. It is, accordingly, too early to establish long-term trends, or their causation, in respect of which there are several hypotheses."

Nor was that the only sign that India's Council on Climate Change had kept its cool while our Rudd and Garnaut lost theirs. For example, the Indians rightly insisted nuclear power had to be part of any real plan to cut emissions. Rudd and Garnaut won't even discuss it. The Indians also pointed out that no feasible technology to trap and bury the gasses of coal-fired power stations had yet been developed "and there are serious questions about the cost as well (as) permanence of the CO2 storage repositories"...

Read the entire Andrew Bolt article here and then pass it on to those who are in charge of your own political future. Someone, somewhere has got to to come to their senses on this thing.

Today's Posts

WALL-E -- The Importance of Holding Hands

Clueless Clooney

England Caves In, Accepts Sharia Law

The Shattering of England's Hearth and Home

"The Real Test Now is How Many People Will Leave" -- Anglican Church Votes to Ordain Women Bishops

WALL-E -- The Importance of Holding Hands

The lead character in the Pixar film “WALL-E” is both an acronym (Waste Allocation Load Lifter—Earth class) and a lonely robot with a personality. While Pixar has mastered the art of animation, it is the implicit message this film conveys which makes it much more than a mere cartoon.

Some conservatives have written the film off as anti-capitalist propaganda. If the intent of capitalism is to cater to the basest instincts of the human heart, requiring us to indulge our every whim and desire, leading to a dependence on government, then I guess I, too, am an anti-capitalist. However, capitalism can only arrive at that end when all of the restraints of personal responsibility are removed. In this sense, WALL-E is a brilliant exposure of liberalism’s flaws...

After a weekend viewing of “WALL-E,” Claire and I (along with Quint and Carol Coppi) agree with Paul Edwards' positive review of the film. It is a very touching story, well told, inventive and with profound social and spiritual significance. On the surface, it may seem to be a "green" movie but its environmental messages are rationally, responsibly conveyed with a few significant departures from the more radical green propaganda normally touted nowadays.

Your kids may like the film. It will be, on their level, cute and perfect for the inevitable spin off toys and video games.

But thinking adults will like it even more.

Other spiritually-oriented commentaries about “WALL-E” can be found here and here. And, don't forget to read the rest of Paul Edwards' column as well.

Clueless Clooney

George Clooney is wealthy, famous and openly proud of his uproariously self-centered success. He has, for instance, forsaken marriage and kids forever. And even though he has occasional doubts (“I do begin to wonder, ‘Am I going to be relegated to these three-year relationships for the rest of my life?'"), he ironically believes that the best way to avoid ending up as a sad, lonely old man is to stay focused on obtaining all the perks he can get right now.

An uncle, also named George, deserves some credit when it comes to the actor’s “no regrets” philosophy.

“I learned a lot about death from him,” George said. “People keep on asking me, ‘Don’t you want to have kids?’ I have not wanted to have kids. Then they say, ‘Aren’t you afraid of dying alone?’ But we all die alone. I remember Uncle George sitting in bed, 68 years old. He looked at me and said, ‘What a waste.’ … I came to the conclusion that I was not going to wake up one day in my 60s and say, ‘What a waste.’ I was going to grab as much out of this life as I could.”

Doesn't it seem to you that Clooney has interpreted his uncle's dispirited angst in exactly the opposite way he should have? Thus, rather than humbly receiving the truth that Jesus explained (i.e. one must lose his life in order to find it), Clooney seems doomed to discover the force of another of the Lord's teachings, "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world (even the fame, fortune and physical pleasures that George Clooney might experience, all oh-so-fleeting), if he loses his own soul?"

England Caves In, Accepts Sharia Law

So this is how it ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.

The most senior judge in England has declared that Islamic legal principles in Sharia law may be used within Muslim communities in Britain to settle marital arguments and regulate finance. Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said, "Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law."

In his speech at an East London mosque, Lord Phillips said Muslims in Britain could use Islamic legal principles as long as punishments - and divorce rulings - comply with English law. Sharia law does not comply with English law. It is a law unto itself.

And so the English who gave us the Magna Carta in 1215, William Blackstone and the foundation of American law are slowly succumbing to the dictates of intolerant Islam and sowing seeds of their own destruction...

Want a few details on just how Muslim law will negatively affect women and children...and the principles of democracy itself? Read the rest of Cal Thomas' excellent column.

The Shattering of England's Hearth and Home

England is a domestic country. Here the home is revered and the hearth sacred. (Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield)

Hmm. I wonder what Disraeli would think of...

* In just one weekend this summer, 7 people were injured in stabbing incidents in England. (The number of children hospitalized with knife wounds has risen by 62% in three years.) London schools are beginning to conduct scans provided and manned by the Metropolitan Police to dissuade students from carrying knives.

* The British Parliament votes to keep abortion legal and allows for the creation of human/animal "hybrids" for scientific experimentation. The numbers of preborn babies killed by abortion in England is at an all time high. So too is the rate of sexually transmitted disease.

* Family breakdown is rife in England with promiscuity, divorce, adultery, and various (and temporary) schemes of cohabitation leaving children bereft of loving guidance and care. Thus fending for themselves, kids wind up in the gangs. Barbara Wilding, chief constable of South Wales says that tribal loyalty has replaced family loyalty with the gang culture (heavy on violence and drugs) becoming a way of life for British teens. High Court judge Mr Justice Coleridge said family breakdown was amongst the most serious social problems facing British society.

* Prayer Digest (which reports on the other items I've mentioned here) explains that the government is going along with leftist groups who insist "sex education" be compulsory from primary school age...this even though all evidence shows that sex education at a young age (particularly value-less indoctrination) leads to increased sexual activity among unmarried youth.

Disraeli's domestic country? Alas, that England has passed.

"The Real Test Now is How Many People Will Leave" -- Anglican Church Votes to Ordain Women Bishops

Well, the Anglicans have taken yet another bold step into heresy -- and thus deeper into religious irrelevance as well -- by the decision of the Church of England's General Synod to allow the ordination of women bishops.

Here is a brief video report from Sky News correspondent Mike McCarthy. Interestingly, it includes a report of many priests (even of at least 6 bishops) believing this is the last straw of an arrogantly erring denomination and who will probably convert to Roman Catholicism. It also has the frank analysis of Mr. McCarthy, "The real test now is how many people will leave. There are certainly going to be many individuals...wrestling with their conscience, asking of themselves in the months and perhaps years to come, 'Do I have a place within the Church of England?'"

The Synod's decision isn't a big surprise, of course; the drift towards modernism has, in recent years, denigrated into a dramatic lurch leftwards with an ever-increasing hostility to tradition, to the Bible's authority, and even to polite dissenters within their ranks.

One such dissenter is perhaps the foremost orthodox theologian in the Anglican Church, Dr. J. I. Packer. Packer, a prolific writer and lecturer, seminary professor, an executive editor of Christianity Today, named by Time Magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America, and and the author of one of the late 20th Century's most influential religious books, Knowing God was, in fact, booted out of the Anglican Church because he would not cave in to modernist revisions.

After having his ministerial license revoked by a liberal Canadian bishop, Packer became a part of the Anglican Network in Canada, an alternative (no, make that rival) organization which decided that persuading the Anglican Church to hold the line against secular acculturation just wasn't working. Believing Christian orthodoxy too precious a thing to waste, they, like other Anglicans who retain a deep respect for the Bible's instructions, created a structure more in keeping with traditional Anglican teaching.

Dr. Packer recently made a public call for Dr. Rowan Williams, the controversial and wildly heterodox Archbishop of Canterbury, to resign. Packer explained that Williams has grievously helped lead the Anglican Church into the deep, dangerous waters of heresy. But Williams isn't alone. Indeed, Packer said that the Anglican bishops leading the Church are no longer just theoretical heretics, but are heretics in practice.

In this article, David Virtue summarizes a presentation Dr. Packer recently gave at Holy Trinity in Eastbourne, England. At that gathering, Packer delineated the specific errors made by the Anglican hierarchy in four issues: Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Liberalism and Homosexuality. Virtue posts a link at the end of the article to a MP3 recording of Dr. Packer's remarks but, even if you don't have the time to listen to the sermon, Virtue's summary will leave you with several important points to ponder. Here are a couple:

* On Anglicanism, Packer highlighted two different views - those who saw Anglicanism as being bound up with historical practices (defined by traditions) and those who saw it being defined by principles contained in the Creeds, Prayer Book, The 39 Articles etc. Packer made it clear he stood in the second camp - Anglicanism is based on principles. He also stated that he believed Anglicanism is "the richest version of Evangelicalism that the world has seen".

* On Liberalism, Packer used the 4 S's to define liberalism.
Subordinates Scripture to the culture and individualistic Christian experience;
Sanctifies the Secular;
Scales down the Supernatural; and
Sweeps away Biblical Standards On Homosexuality

Today's Posts

It's Monday. Take Your Time on Ambitious Projects.

Progress in the 8th Circuit Court on Life Issue?

Scott Wesley Brown Sings a Warning

Bush Was Right: Hussein's WMD Program Was All-Too-Real

Colombian Rescuers Posed as Leftist NGO

It's Monday. Take Your Time on Ambitious Projects.

Progress in the 8th Circuit Court on Life Issue?

In the Americans United for Life blog, Mailee Smith (staff attorney for the AUL) describes some encouraging elements of last week's 8th Circuit Court decision about South Dakota’s informed consent law. Check it out.

In a decision issued last week by the Eighth Circuit (sitting en banc), the Court reversed a preliminary injunction that had blocked the enforcement of certain provisions of South Dakota’s informed consent law.

The provisions require that a woman be informed that “the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being,” and that the woman has an existing, Constitutional relationship with her unborn child. Planned Parenthood had challenged the law, and initially obtained the now-overturned preliminary injunction from the lower court.

The effect of this ruling remains to be seen. Because the decision involved only a preliminary injunction, the actual merits of the case—and the constitutionality of the informed consent provisions—have not been decided. However, a few positive developments must be noted.

First, the Court concluded that, in a preliminary injunction proceeding involving government action, plaintiffs such as Planned Parenthood must meet a higher standard. It is not enough that Planned Parenthood show that it might succeed on the merits of the case; it must show that it is likely to succeed. This heightens the standard that district courts in the Eighth Circuit will use when considering preliminarily enjoining abortion related laws.

Second, this Court more accurately balanced expert witness testimony than it has in the past. For example, in Carhart v. Gonzales, one of the partial-birth abortion cases, the lower court and Eighth Circuit took abortionist testimony as fact, completely dismissing the accuracy and strength of the government’s expert witnesses.

Here, however, the Court emphasized that Planned Parenthood did not have enough medical and scientific evidence that the informed consent provisions were unnecessary or inaccurate. The Court did not take as fact a plaintiff abortionist’s own affidavit. Instead, it balanced the legislative history and multiple expert witnesses testimonies given by the government. In other words, the Court did not take abortionist testimony as fact, as it has done in the past.

Finally, the Court indicated that the question of when life begins is a scientific, and not necessarily ideological, fact. It demanded scientific evidence from Planned Parenthood. And because Planned Parenthood did not produce, it lost at the preliminary injunction stage.

What happens next with this case remains to be seen. The informed consent provisions are not in the clear yet—the preliminary injunction stage is just one hurdle in the battle of constitutionality. But at least as the lawsuit proceeds, the provisions will be in effect.

Scott Wesley Brown Sings a Warning

Scott Wesley Brown is an extremely talented and successful Christian "musicianary," a man whose devotion to the gospel, to theological orthodoxy, to compassion in action, and to standards of biblical justice have provided, for many years now, a dramatic inspiration to untold numbers around the world. And yet Scott's zeal in the Lord's cause grows ever stronger and he's as energetically involved in building the Church as if he was just getting started.

Having been of direct help to us at Vital Signs Ministries in our first years of service as well as to the AAA Center for Pregnancy Counseling here in Omaha when we were getting that ministry started, Claire and I (along with the whole Vital Signs team) have long held the greatest appreciation and affection for Scott.

He is, most definitely, the real deal.

And with such compelling musical exhortations as "When America Is Not America Anymore" to his credit, our appreciation just keeps growing. Give a listen (and a look) to Scott's moving new song here in this YouTube presentation he alerted us to this weekend. If you're not already, I think it will help move you to join us as die-hard SWB fans.

For more about Scott Wesley Brown, his music, his live events, and how you can help out in his terrific I Care global ministry, check out the official SWB web site right here.

Bush Was Right: Hussein's WMD Program Was All-Too-Real

Way back in March of 2006, Vital Signs Blog linked readers to a Washington Times article suggesting that, despite all the blather from Democrats and the "mainstream" press to the contrary, Saddam Hussein did have a diabolically dangerous WMD program.

The evidence for Iraq's WMD development continued to grow and, just in time for President Bush's birthday, the Associated Press ran a story that confirmed Bush's reasons to confront the murderous Saddam Hussein in the first place. The story speaks of Hussein's nuclear program, 550 metric tons of concentrated uranium (the infamous "yellowcake") at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex just south of Baghdad, and multiple devices that could be used in a nuclear weapon.

Do I hear an apology from the left?

I didn't think so.

Randall Hoven, has more details in this American Thinker piece.

Colombian Rescuers Posed as Leftist NGO

It may have taken years for army intelligence to infiltrate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and it may have been tough to convincingly impersonate rebels. But what seems to have been a walk in the park was getting the FARC to believe that an NGO was providing resources to help it in the dirty work of ferrying captives to a new location.

I am reminded of President Álvaro Uribe's 2003 statement that some "human rights" organizations in his country were fronts for terrorists. Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd got his back up over Mr. Uribe's statement, and piously lectured the Colombian president about "the importance of democratic values."

But as the helicopter story suggests, Mr. Uribe seems to have been right. How else to explain the fact that the FARC swallowed the line without batting an eye?

This warrants attention because it adds to the already robust evidence that left-wing NGOs and other so-called human rights defenders, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombian Sen. Piedad Cordoba, are nothing more than propagandists for terrorists...

Here's Mary Anastasia O'Grady's very effective Wall Street Journal article in its entirety.

Today's Posts

Prize for Perversity: The Order of Canada Goes to Abortionist Henry Morgentaler

China Doesn't Like Human Rights Advocates

The Obama Campaign: Style, Symbol and Fawning Press Treatment

Will Operation Jacque Soften Pelosi's Unreasonable Attitude Towards Colombia?

Prize for Perversity: The Order of Canada Goes to Abortionist Henry Morgentaler

One of the world's most monstrous men, a Holocaust survivor become abortionist, Henry Morgentaler, has just been awarded the Order of Canada “for his commitment to increased health care options for women, his determined efforts to influence Canadian public policy and his leadership in humanist and civil liberties organizations."

Make no mistake, these things matter to God.

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20 NASB)

There are, of course, several stories dealing with this insidious affair. I cite here only three.

1) The National Post article describes Father Lucien Larrein of British Columbia returning his own Order of Canada out of protest as well as these statements from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops: "Far from improving our country, Mr. Morgentaler's actions continue to create controversy and division in our nation. In the name of freedom of choice, he has encouraged the development of a culture of death and has thus attacked the most vulnerable, the unborn."

2) In an especially interesting reaction, pro-choice journalist Henry Aubin, writing in the Gazette (Montreal), describes his reluctance to even discuss abortion. However...

...On the Morgentaler's membership in the Order of Canada. however, I feel no ambivalence whatever. The membership of the abortion-rights crusader, announced Tuesday, is not only an affront to his pro-life adversaries, it's also offensive to a middle-ground type like myself.

If an organization representing doctors, civil libertarians or humanists were to lionize Morgentaler, fine, I'd have no problem. The organization would be private. It wouldn't be representing me. But the Order of Canada is a symbolic stand-in for you and me and all citizens. It is the vehicle by which the state honours and celebrates what the Order describes as a "lifetime of distinguished service." I have as much trouble paying homage to Morgentaler as I would to his opposite number in the pro-life movement. He's an extremist, the most vocal proponent of one of the most socially radical causes of our time.

In honouring such a proponent, the Order is also plainly honouring the cause itself. It's one thing to tolerate abortion. It's another thing to applaud it...

3) I'll suggest just one more link before leaving off with this disgraceful matter and it's the thoughtful, challenging column written by Stephanie Gray, the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, for the Calgary Herald. The whole piece should be read but here's an excerpt:

To give Henry Morgentaler the Order of Canada is simply to be consistent with what's going on in this country.

Sure, people can point to an online poll by the Globe and Mail that revealed 92 per cent of over 300,000 respondents are against giving him the award.

But the reality is that a majority of Canadians support abortion when the procedure most often occurs, in the first trimester. Further realities are that more than 250 human beings will be killed today, that this is state-sanctioned, and that this is paid for by our tax dollars.

If this is the first time Canadians are feeling shame about celebrating Canada Day, then we have problems.

People should have been reluctant to celebrate Canada Day back in 1969, when abortion first became legal. The problem to which our limited attention should be drawn is not awarding Henry Morgentaler the Order of Canada, but the genocide of a group of people who are being denied their right to life simply because of their age. Their fate is to be dismembered, disemboweled and decapitated.

Morgentaler's award is simply a symptom of a more deeply rooted crisis.

We can look at Morgentaler's award and blame the selecting committee. We can blame the government and its politicians. We can blame others -- because that's easy. But what's difficult is to blame ourselves...

China Doesn't Like Human Rights Advocates

Two of the U.S. Congress' leading human rights champions, Republicans Chris Smith and Frank Wolf, learned about Communist China's intimidating and repressive practices up close and personal when they traveled there to meet with Christian leaders and political dissidents. Here's the story from Smith's hometown paper.

The Obama Campaign: Style, Symbol and Fawning Press Treatment

Barack Obama's conversion of the United States presidential seal into a personalized campaign emblem (as shown here in a speech made to Democrat governors a couple of weeks ago) was a bonehead move, one that Obama sure hopes will go away soon. And, as he has all year long, he will depend on the media to grin and gloss over his gaffes...that is, when they're not ignoring them altogether.

However, the "seal deal" may not be fading away as quickly or as noiselessly as he wishes. And that's because it represents an ongoing trend.

For instance, a CBS News story today picks up on the "style over substance" argument usually only made by conservatives:

"All politicians, especially presidential candidates, traffic in symbols all the time," said Rutgers historian David Greenberg. "But Obama has given special care to his symbolic statements."...

Image-making can be a delicate business: The Obama campaign's misguided attempt to roll out its too-presidential-looking campaign seal fed into the notion that the presumptive nominee arrogantly already believed the presidency to be his. Republicans quickly turned the now-retired seal into a joke, with the McCain campaign rolling out a video suggesting that Obama might next put his face on the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore.

Greenberg argues that Obama "tends to emphasize the symbolic over policy detail" in his campaign - a tendency reflected by his reliance (especially early on) on vague notions of "hope" and "change."

"Bill Clinton used a lot of symbolism too, but he also ran with policy as his centerpiece," said Greenberg. "[Former Clinton advisor] George Stephanopoulos argued that 'specificity was the character issue,' and they made that a focus. That's not really what Obama is doing. It doesn't mean he hasn't thought about policy, but he isn't making it the central focus of his campaign."

(H/T: Our Side of the Mountain)

Will Operation Jacque Soften Pelosi's Unreasonable Attitude Towards Colombia?

Lucianne.com provides several links this morning to stories about the daring Operation Jaque, Colombia's surprise rescue operation which freed former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages held by Marxist terrorists. Some had been held for years. It's an amazing action and the free world should be very grateful to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe (photo at right) and the country's military for their efforts to secure standards of freedom and justice in Colombia.

I wonder how those Democrats who have so stridently stonewalled President Bush's attempts to create a free trade agreement with America's key ally in South America are receiving the news today? Will this operation, done at a great risk to the troops involved, swing Nancy Pelosi and her fellow ingrates to a more enlightened, more responsible opinion on Colombia?

Uh...don't wait the barbecue on that hope.

Today's Posts

"Love Defeats the World's Programming"

"Religious Justice" As Enacted by the Taliban

Global Warming as a "Sick-Souled Religion"?

Patriotism Obama Style

The BBC's Stubborn, Shameful Bias

What Anthony Kennedy Says, Goes

Israel Cave-In: Terrorists Returned to Hezbollah

"Love Defeats the World's Programming"

For a little change of pace from the seriousness (no, make that severity) of the topics covered in today's blog posts, I thought I'd draw your attention to this little item from Travis McSherley over at The Point.

"Religious Justice" As Enacted by the Taliban

Below is described an example of how "religious justice" is meted out by the Taliban in Pakistan. Be forewarned, it's brutal. And yet, because of how rarely such stories make their way to the front pages of Western newspapers, it's important to read. Only through facing these outrageous horrors will Americans understand the true nature of radical Islam.

...In any event, loudspeakers in mosques called the faithful to witness the brutality that was to follow. A crowd estimated at 5,000 or more assembled. The Afghans were dragged out of a car. Masked militants pulled the two blindfolded Afghans from a car and forced them to kneel on the ground.

Waliur Rehman, a local Taliban commander, told the crowd that the two men had confessed to aiding in the strike on a house in the border town of Damadola that killed 14 people last month. The men disclosed the names of others accused of involvement, who would be killed as well, Rehman said. ...

"Whoever, for the sake of money, for the sake of America, harms the interest of the Islamic world will meet the same fate," Rehman said. Gunmen with daggers then pounced on one of the men—identified as Jan Wali, 36—decapitated him and waved his bloody head to the cheering crowd....

The crowd cheered "Allahu akbar," or "God is great." You can see how this would be a religious experience. The assassins then debated whether the second man should be decapitated, since he may not have been of age. One of the gunmen settled the issue by shooting him in the head...

(Sources: Power Line via the Associated Press via BreitBart.com)

Global Warming as a "Sick-Souled Religion"?

Bret Stephens has an enlightened, distinctly international perspective on political and economic affairs. Born in Mexico City; educated in Britain and the U.S.; the youngest ever editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post; and now an editorial writer and news commentator for the Wall Street Journal based in Brussels -- Stephens' observations are always worthwhile to consider.

And among the many important things on his mind these days is the mania surrounding global warming.

Here, in this important WSJ article, Bret Stephens shares some of the most insightful, most disarming arguments against the "sick-souled religion" that is global warming that you'll find. His examination of the mania deals with its ideology, theology and psychology -- an unusual approach which makes for really excellent reading.

Bret Stephens' "Global Warming as Mass Neurosis" is certainly a "keeper article" and another good one to e-mail to friends.

Patriotism Obama Style

Barack Obama has a patriotism problem that even Monday's flag-waving trip to Independence, Mo., can't squelch. And it doesn't have anything to do with his lapel pin.

In part because liberal commentators have such a hard time grasping why patriotism should be an issue at all, and the GOP is so clumsy explaining why it's important, the debate often gets boiled down to symbols. Like so much else about Obama, his position on the lapel flag changes with the needs of the moment. After 9/11, he wore it. During the debates over the Iraq war, he stopped because he saw the flag as a sign of support for President Bush. (He started wearing it again in May.) "I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," he added in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great and, hopefully, that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

Read that line again: "What I believe will make this country great."

Not to sound too much like a Jewish mother, but some might respond, "What? It's not great now?"

This sense that America is in need of fixing in order to be a great country points to Obama's real patriotism problem. And it's not Obama's alone...

Obama went on to say that he will "remake" the country. Well, what if you don't want it remade? And Michelle Obama — who believes America is "downright mean" and is proud of America for the first time because of her husband's success — insists that Barack will make you "work" for change and that he will "demand that you, too, be different." What if you don't want to work for Obama's change? What if you don't want to be "different"?

Liberals might giggle at what to them sounds like paranoia. But if you aren't already entranced by Obama, Obamania can seem not only vaguely anti-American but also downright otherworldly. Star Wars creator George Lucas recently proclaimed that it's "reasonably obvious" Obama is a Jedi Knight. Mark Morford, a particularly loopy San Francisco Chronicle columnist, says Obama isn't really "one of us." Rather, he's a "Lightworker," the sort of being who can help us find "a new way of being on the planet." Self-help guru Deepak Chopra insists that an Obama victory would bring about "a quantum leap in American consciousness." Even NBC's Chris Matthews has been entranced by Obama's Jedi mind tricks. Obamania, he says, is "bigger than Kennedy. … This is the New Testament."

The notion that what America needs is a redeemer figure to "remake" America from scratch isn't necessarily unpatriotic. But for lots of Americans who like America the way it is, it's sometimes hard to tell when it isn't.

This terrific Jonah Goldberg column was picked up by USA Today. Let's hope that many Americans, getting ready to celebrate America's Independence Day, will read the piece and begin to reconsider Barack Obama -- the real fellow, that is, and not the sanctimonious super-hero of the MSM's creation.

And, by the way, more Americans will read Goldberg's column if you forward this post to a few of them; namely, your friends and family.

Just use the button located below. Go on; it's quicker (and a lot safer) than lighting a pop bottle rocket and a great way to celebrate the Fourth!

The BBC's Stubborn, Shameful Bias

Why is it that the BBC is totally incapable of delivering a straight good news story on Iraq? The news that the Iraqi government is opening its oil fields for development by international companies should be an occasion for rejoicing.

Iraq has the second largest known oil reserves in the world - and only about one third of the country has been properly surveyed. At a time when the world is desperately short of oil, and prices have hit an all-time high, Iraq could help alleviate the pressure on the West's hard-pressed economies.

The fact that the Iraqi government now feels it is strong enough to tackle this crucial issue also shows that the new, democratic Iraq is now finally emerging from the shadow of Saddam Hussein's thirty-year reign of fear.

But is any of this goods news reflected in the the BBC's coverage? - not a word of it...

The rest of Con Coughlin's commentary in the Telegraph (U.K.) is well worth reading.

What Anthony Kennedy Says, Goes

It must be fun to be Justice Anthony Kennedy. You show up for a conference at the Supreme Court and almost always find that four of your colleagues (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, Stephen Breyer and John Paul Stevens) are lined up on the liberal side of every ideological issue, while the other four (John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas) are on the conservative side. So all you have to do is make up your mind, and presto! -- your opinion becomes the supreme law of the land...

William Rusher takes a quick (but valuable) look at the current Supreme Court as well as how November's election might change America even more dramatically.

Israel Cave-In: Terrorists Returned to Hezbollah

It's a strange and ominous pattern nowadays that sees the stronger force surrender to the weaker, even when the weaker forces are those fomenting the grossest immoralities, injustices and even terror.

The latest case in point from Israel? A deal approved by the Israeli cabinet (22-3) which awards Israel 2 corpses and what P. David Hornik calls "partial, inadequate information on Ron Arad, the airman shot down over Lebanon in 1986." In turn, Israel gives away to Hezbollah classified information about four Iranian diplomats and five, very much alive, terrorists.

Among the sadists being returned to Hezbollah is Samir Kuntar, highly-praised by his terrorist peers for savagely murdering a four-year old Jewish girl in 1979.

Here's Hornik's report of this sordid political cave-in affair from Front Page Magazine.

Today's Posts

Sorry, Pal...You Can Take the Soda, the Sliced Oranges and the Sandwiches into the Ballpark, But Not the Spray Paint, Hamster or that Six-Gun.

What's Going Down In the Abandonment of Abstinence Funding? Not Teen Pregnancy, Abortion or STDs!

Shades of Stalin: Religion Under Severe Fire In Eastern Europe

When Did the Left Conquer the Arts?

On Donna Brazile's Indifference to Abortion

While Abortions Increase in the United Kingdom, Politicians Fund Immoral (and Clearly Counter-Productive) Measures

Richland, Washington's Wal-Mart Cancels Planned Parenthood Event

Sorry, Pal...You Can Take the Soda, the Sliced Oranges and the Sandwiches into the Ballpark, But Not the Spray Paint, Hamster or that Six-Gun.

When Claire and I were in Denver for the wedding of a niece, we joined members of her family for a Colorado Rockies game. Now we love going to a major league game (baseball among all the sports requires one's live presence to truly appreciate it) and we absolutely love Coors Field - clean, attractive, well-designed and with the Front Range as the backdrop for those sitting along the first base line. Very nice.

We also deeply appreciate the fact that Coors Field treats their fans with a greater sensibility to home economy; that is, the Rockies management allows you to bring in a lot more of your own eats than do most of the MLB parks. So, instead of having to hit the ATM in order to purchase $5 Cokes, you can bring your own in -- as long as they come in plastic bottles. The same is true of food items and small thermos bottles. The Rockies want fans in the seats more than they want to gouge you at the concession stand.

Good for them.

But that doesn't mean you can take into the stadium whatever you want and, in a illustration to the absurdly litigious society in which we live, the Rockies feel it necessary to inform you in their official rules what Coors Field will not allow. Among other items, that includes: illegal drugs, glass bottles, aerosol cans, briefcases, camera stands, clubs, fireworks, bullhorns, soap bubbles, animals, skateboards, large squirt guns, fishing poles, laser pointers...and, oh yes, guns and "other weapons."

I particularly love (but remain perplexed by) the fishing pole prohibition.

The full list of what's permitted and what's not permitted (and there's still more curious entries there) can be found in the "Restrictions" section of the Rockies A-Z Guide right here.

What's Going Down In the Abandonment of Abstinence Funding? Not Teen Pregnancy, Abortion or STDs!

This week, an AP story about the growing number of states walking away from federal abstinence funding is being hailed by some as a death knell for the abstinence movement. But many inside the pro-family camp see the wave of opposition for what it really is -- a conspiracy to undermine a proven approach for delaying teen sexual activity. Sadly, at least 17 states are walking away from the Title V program for politically charged reasons and turning a blind eye to the needs of America's young people. The nation has already witnessed the fallout of these decisions in states like Massachusetts, where leaders rejected the funds and watched pregnancy rates quadruple in one year at Gloucester High School. Faced with a culture saturated in promiscuity and STDs, teenagers need to be equipped with the skills and abstinence education offers now more than ever.

Although abstinence education is relatively young with regard to evaluation, the body of evidence for effective programs is quickly growing. Just three months ago, the Heritage Foundation researched 15 abstinence education programs and an overwhelming majority (11) yielded positive results. In addition, researcher Dr. Stan Weed testified to a congressional committee that at least two programs had reduced the rates of sexual initiation by 45 to 50 percent! Unfortunately, opponents of abstinence continue to cite the Mathematica report that studied four small abstinence-centered programs. What researchers found is not that abstinence doesn't work, but that girls and boys can't receive a short course program during middle school, have no reinforcement of the material during high school years -- when the behavioral risk is highest -- and expect positive outcomes. Critics of abstinence cling to this one study and choose to ignore the positive results flowing from numerous other programs.

The attempts to discredit the solid abstinence prevention strategy are weighing thin. It's time for politicians to put the teens in need of this programming first, so that they can successfully build healthy relationships, refrain from sexual activity, aspire to marriage and protect their health.

(Family Research Council)

Shades of Stalin: Religion Under Severe Fire In Eastern Europe

Here's a brief rundown from Forum 18 on a few of the latest examples of how East European thugs are running roughshod over the human rights of religious believers:

* In Azerbaijan, corrupt police planted a gun in the home of a Baptist pastor and then threw him in jail on charges of holding an illegal weapon. The pastor's brother says the purpose of the action (one in a series of persecutions of religious believers) is to halt Baptist activity altogether. "Their target is the church." Pastor Shabanov is the second Baptist pastor in the remote village of Aliabad to face imprisonment on what local Baptists insist are trumped-up charges. Shabanov's family insist he has no weapon and that police planted the gun they claim to have found. But the local police chief appears to have made up his mind. "He's a criminal," the head of Zakatala regional police told Forum 18, even though under Azerbaijani law individuals are innocent until found guilty in court.

* In Belarus, an extremely heavy fine (more than two months of the average wage) have fallen on a Baptist Christian who "organised choir singing and conducted conversations on religious topics" outside Ushachi's public market. After a plain clothes policeman had told a group of Baptists from outside the area to stop, Vladimir Burshtyn replied that they were not disturbing public order and cited religious freedom guarantees in Belarus' Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yeah, that's what it says but Alexander Lukashenka's government (and the petty tyrants in other locales who look to him for guidance) doesn't worry about the small print. The fine is, to Forum 18's knowledge, the highest yet imposed on Baptists for unregistered religious activity.

* In Tajikistan the country's only synagogue (located in the capital city of Dushanbe) has been bulldozed by the government, leaving the Jewish community without a place to worship or to conduct its food aid programme. The state's next demolition target, as part of a "city reconstruction plan" is the Bread of Life Protestant Church. Church members told Forum 18 they have been given until early July to vacate the building ahead of demolition.

* In Uzbekistan, leaders of 26 Protestant congregations across the country have published an open letter rejecting state-controlled TV stations' repeated broadcasts of a film encouraging intolerance and hatred of religious minorities. Protestant leaders also condemn "garbled facts, aggressive attacks, lies and slander" against named individuals and churches by the state TV broadcasts, and accuse the state and those who took part in the film of violating Uzbek criminal law through the broadcast. The leaders also complain that the state-controlled leaderships of schools and colleges strongly encouraged students to watch the film and so encouraged religious hatred and intolerance amongst young people. State-run newspapers and websites carried linked articles attacking religious minorities and their sharing of their beliefs, one such article stating that religious minorities "have one aim: to infringe on human freedom with all the consequences that flow from it." No wonder that direct persecutions are increasing there.

When Did the Left Conquer the Arts?

Alexander Stoddart, the Scottish sculptor that The American Arts Quarterly has hailed as “clearly the most important British sculptor of his generation” has some unusual and intriguing comments on life, art and political ideology in the latest edition of the Spectator. Here's my favorite passages:

The great British philosopher Brian Magee, writing about Richard Wagner’s political life, points out that it is wrong to think of the Sage of Bayreuth moving to the Right in his later life. Magee’s proposal is compelling; Wagner leaves left-wing politics precisely as men who are maturing leave politics generally. They drift in middle age towards the static wasteland of metaphysics, and this is observed by those still remaining in politics as a move towards the Opposition, since they still cannot think of anything outside the political sphere. It appears that the ageing man ‘goes Tory’. In reality, however, there is every chance that he has simply glimpsed his first sight of the ‘other side’...

The Left, early in the last century, failed to secure direct revolution in the West, so another tactic was adopted — to dismantle the institutions of the Occident in a long, piecemeal slog. The focus fell on the arts, and this explains why the high music and visual arts of today are so startlingly different from anything you might encounter in undeconstructed times. Where the family, say, was singled out as a sinister and coercive societal institution, so certain artistic forms likewise became suspect: the tune; the rhyme; the moulding; the plinth. Today they are half-heartedly trying to reconstruct the family; but the cultural institutions are proving harder to patch up and this can be attributed to something in the artistic forms of traditionalism that the newly barbarised human being deeply dreads.The Modernism of the last century has forged a sub-sensibility, where man is engineered to be a healthy kind of ignoramus — a Superman — unneedful of the analgesic mercies that art of the old sort delivered into the veins of suffering humanity. The pain is the gain — so let’s write poems that are merely chopped prose, boil our testicles to win the Turner prize, build houses that look like washing machines for living in and, if we make statues at all, make sure they are bolted down at pavement level, so we can ‘interact’ with them (usually with some vomit on a Saturday night)...

Proper, old-fashioned-looking statues have stillness, which grates on the nerves of the naturally clamorous. Then they have great scale with which to emphasise that calmness. Observe how the eyes of these statues never follow you about: they ignore you. This offends left-wingers, who are always craving attention. And the statues are far away, in the sky. Why are they not down here, with us, on our level?...

The photos above show Stoddart with clay models in production of, respectively, his Adam Smith and St. Nicholas of Tolentino. More information about Alexander Stoddart can be found at his website here.

On Donna Brazile's Indifference to Abortion

In viewing the CNN video file provided in this NewsBusters post, you can watch Barack Obama advisor Donna Brazile make the televised statement that has so disturbed many conservative activists; namely, that Americans are more interested in gas prices than they are abortion or same-sex marriage.

No doubt, Brazile's comments are callous and deeply troubling. But there's one thing about the matter that is more troubling still.

She's right.

While Abortions Increase in the United Kingdom, Politicians Fund Immoral (and Clearly Counter-Productive) Measures

This from the latest newsletter of one of the U.K.'s most valuable pro-life organizations, Image: Christians Caring for Life...

Government figures just issued show the number of abortions in the United Kingdom in 2007 was the highest ever. There were 205,598 abortions in England and Wales, compared with 201,173 in 2006. There were 13,703 in Scotland, compared with 13,163 in 2006. That makes a total of 219,301 in England, Wales and Scotland.

The 198,499 abortions on England and Wales residents were 2.5% up on the previous year. Only one per cent were carried out because of the risk of serious handicap.

Numbers of abortions on all teenagers were up. Abortions on 16-year-olds were up 10 per cent on the previous year.

There were only 135 abortions – less than 0.1% of the total – after 24 weeks. 81% were on single women. Medical abortions – for instance, using the abortion pill – accounted for 35% of the total, compared with 30% in 2006. (In Scotland, 61.8% of abortions were medical abortions.) Some 1,343 women travelled from Northern Ireland for abortions, and 4,686 from the Irish Republic.

Despite the fact that abortions have reached unprecedented levels, MPs are wanting to liberalise abortion law still further. If they have their way – and their proposals are part of a flagship Government bill which the Prime Minister at the moment seems determined to have passed – abortion is likely to become a medical procedure without restriction, like having a tooth out or one’s appendix removed.

Their eyes appear to have been so blinded that they imagine that they can liberalise abortion law and at the same time reduce the number of abortions – by providing more free condoms and more morals-free sex education.

Gill Frances, of the Government's Teenage Pregnancy Advisory Group, said the other day, referring to what they see as the need for more sex education and more contraception clinics in schools, “We know what works to reduce abortion among teenagers.” It never seems to enter the minds of those appointed to provide for the welfare of our children that there has never been more sex education and more free contraception and yet abortion figures – including abortion figures among young teens – have never been higher.

There is a need to contact MPs and the Prime Minister. But in the past 40 years there has never been a greater need to pray. Can we depend on you to lay hold of heaven at this time?

Richland, Washington's Wal-Mart Cancels Planned Parenthood Event

Congratulations and thanks go to everyone who let Wal-Mart know of their serious opposition to having one of the Wal-Mart stores host a Planned Parenthood promotion and literature distribution. The set up for the event was presented in this post from Vital Signs from last Friday.

But then pro-life activists started with their phone calls, e-mails and, at the local level, more direct contact with Wal-Mart officials.

And Wal-Mart wisely decided to cancel the event altogether.

Leading the petition to Wal-Mart for the mega-store to reconsider its' affiliation with the nation's #1 abortion organization was Jim Toth, pro-life chairman of the Knight of Columbus for the state of Washington. The efforts of Toth and his fellow Knights were joined by American Life League and other pro-life, pro-family groups whose efforts then created hundreds of individual appeals from around the country.

Claire Hartford was one of those and here is her description of how things played out:

"After reading the Vital Signs Blog post, I called Wal Mart's 800 number to register my concern about Planned Parenthood distributing material at their Richland, Washington store. It took awhile to get through the maze of recorded instructions but I finally was able to speak with a customer service representative. She politely took my complaint and said that someone would call me back about the matter in a few business days.

"However, it was only a few hours later that a manger from the Richland store itself called me. He explained that there had been some 'miscommunication' about Planned Parenthood getting an OK to distribute materials at the store. In fact, he said that the matter had been reviewed and it was decided that Planned Parenthood did not, after all, fit within their guidelines of what type of groups they allowed to 'partner' with Wal-Mart.

"Best of all, the manager informed me that the event had been canceled. He thanked me for my concerns and expressed his understanding of my position. I, in turn, thanked him for his prompt return of my call -- but even more for doing the right thing by refusing Planned Parenthood's promotion."